Remembrance of Deep Bonds

John 14:1-14

When I was growing up on the farm, we had cattle. Every Spring, there were new calves. It was always fun as a kid seeing calves born and watching them grow. Like most farmers do, we weaned our calves before they got too old. It was always a little hard taking the calves away from their mothers…I guess it’s because I imagined being separated from my own mom and that’s not too pleasant a thought. But when we did it early enough, both calf and mother seemed to adjust quite well.

One year, there was a calf born later than the rest. We should have weaned the calf but never got around to it. Corn planting began, then soybean planting, then spraying, and then it was Fall. This one calf spent a lot of time with its mother…much longer than normal. We tried unsuccessfully a couple of times to wean it, but each time we tried, it got harder because the calf was more persistent in staying close to the cow. It would jump fences to get back to her. If this calf could see or hear its mother, there seemed to be no stopping it. Finally, we had to move this (now young bull because we didn’t get it castrated either) to another barn two miles away!

What did I learn from this? First, one needs to wean the calves when it’s time. Second, the deeper the bond grows between two individuals, the more painful it is when separation occurs.[1]

We know this second principle to be true don’t we? If you meet someone one time and never see them again, it’s no big loss, is it? But if you lose a life-long friend, the pain can be gigantic! This is a person with whom you’ve shared experiences of joy and sorrow. You’ve invested yourself in this person and they have in you. And if this person moves away or dies, the void is immense.

We could talk about other relationships too where the deeper the bond grows, the more painful it is when separation occurs: when your kids go away to college you parents know the emptiness that’s often left; when marriages unravel the pain can cripple not just the husband and wife but the whole family; and each of us could probably speak of losing a family member to disease or illness. The deeper the bond grows, the more painful it is when separation occurs.

This is some of what’s going on in this section of John’s Gospel today. Jesus has become very close to his disciples. They have known a whole range of shared experiences: healings,[2] water skiing at night[3] (well, Jesus did but the rest of the disciples stayed in the boat), great feasts that seem to come from nowhere,[4] and resurrections – both the physical kind with Lazarus[5] and the emotional kind when Jesus gave a new hope in living to a woman caught in adultery.[6] But now Jesus was preparing the disciples for separation and each time Jesus speaks of his suffering and death they react like weaned calves separated from their mothers. Jesus knew the depth of the pain that his absence would cause and so he tried to get the disciples ready for it. The deeper the bond grows, the more painful it is when separation occurs.

Our text today begins with one of the great themes of John’s Gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”[7] I’m not sure these words ever found a true home in the disciples’ hearts because they continued to live very anxious lives – as often are our own lives. Jesus then speaks of his going away and a promise of reunion. But Thomas offers a thought that many of us have known as well: he wants to know how to find the way to God in the midst of a confusing life. Jesus had not yet left the disciples but already they felt him slipping away. I don’t know about you but I have known that experience of God – when God seems on vacation from my life. Sometimes I think that it might be easier if we never knew those moments when God was vibrantly close to us because then the absence wouldn’t be so intense. But then again, the saying is true: the deeper the bond grows, the more painful it is when separation occurs.

The disciples thought they knew the roadmap of where Jesus was headed, and thought they were close to arriving at a destination – messiahship with them each at prominent positions – but really, their journey had just begun.

John Steinbeck wrote these words in his book, Travels with Charley, that I believe come close to describing the journey the disciples knew. “A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us…A journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”[8] And I guess that’s one of the things the disciples knew to be the truest in their life: they were on a journey they did not control.

So what do we do when we’re on this journey of life with a direction beyond our grasp? Is there hope for those of us with troubled hearts, or experiences of God that seem increasingly distant?

Jesus told Philip in our passage today: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Jesus is jogging the memory of the disciples and telling them to remember those experiences they had with Jesus because they were experiences with God. Those experiences would help the disciples in the future when times got tough.

For us, when God seems far away, or when the journey takes turns that leave us lost, we go back to what’s familiar and cherished. My prayer is that one of those experiences for you when God seems close is when we gather around the Lord’s Table. When you walk down that aisle and have a deacon look you in the eye and say, “This is Christ’s body broken for you. This is Christ’s blood shed for you,” then the distance from God can close considerably.

This morning, before you come to the Table, I want you to spend a few moments recalling a time when you thought God was especially close to you. Go back and remember the sights, smells, and even tastes of that experience. And then bring that moment with you to the Table as you draw close to God.

Amen.

[1] I’ve adapted this second principal from a thought developed by Fred B. Craddock in his sermon, “The Absence of Christ,” in his book The Cherry Log Sermons (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), p. 54-59.

[7] Marvin A. McMickle, “Promise and Foretaste,” The Living Pulpit, April-June 2005, p. 25.

[8] This is a quotation from John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley (New York: Bantam Books, 1961), p. 4. I found this quote in Elaine M. Prevallet’s article, “Finding the Way,” Weavings, Volume XVI, Number 6, November-December 2001, p. 24.